CHAPTER VIII.

“Pain! pain! art thou wrestling here with man,For the broken gold of his wasted span?Art thou straining thy rock on his tortured nerve,Till his firmest hopes from their anchor swerve,Till the burning tears from his eyeballs flow,And his manhood yields in a cry of woe?“Death! death! do I see thee with weapon dread—Art thou laying thy hand on his noble head?Lo! the wife is here, with her sleepless eye,To dispute each step of thy victory.She doth fold that form in her soul’s embrace,And her prayer swells high from its resting-place.”

“Pain! pain! art thou wrestling here with man,

For the broken gold of his wasted span?

Art thou straining thy rock on his tortured nerve,

Till his firmest hopes from their anchor swerve,

Till the burning tears from his eyeballs flow,

And his manhood yields in a cry of woe?

“Death! death! do I see thee with weapon dread—Art thou laying thy hand on his noble head?Lo! the wife is here, with her sleepless eye,To dispute each step of thy victory.She doth fold that form in her soul’s embrace,And her prayer swells high from its resting-place.”

“Death! death! do I see thee with weapon dread—

Art thou laying thy hand on his noble head?

Lo! the wife is here, with her sleepless eye,

To dispute each step of thy victory.

She doth fold that form in her soul’s embrace,

And her prayer swells high from its resting-place.”

In a quiet village of New York, Myra Whitney made her home with the man who had won her against so much opposition and amid so many trials. She had cast off the splendor of her old life, and, sharing the fortunes of her husband, began a new and still more noble existence; but directly came one to the little Eden with news that would henceforth and forever more drive quiet away from her home.

A man who was well acquainted with the frauds that had been practiced on the infant heiress, sought out the young bride and told her of the vast wealth illegally withheld from her by the executors of Daniel Clark’s estate—told her of that which stirred the proud blood in her veins more warmly than any idea of wealth could have done—the doubt that had been craftily thrown on her own legitimacy, and thus on the fair fame of her mother.

From that day all hope of repose fled from her happy home. A stern duty was before her—that of retrieving the wrongs heaped on her mother, and of wresting the honorable name of a father, whom she worshiped even in his memory, from the odium that had been fastened upon his actions. Joined to all this, was the natural ambition of a high-spirited and proud young woman to claim her true position in the world, and toendow the man of her choice with wealth justly her own, but of which he had been all unconscious at the time of their marriage; and now commenced that stern strife between justice and fraud which has for more than twenty years made the romance of our courts. With her young husband Myra went to New Orleans, and there gathered up those threads of evidence which laid the iniquity, which had darkened her whole life, bare before the world. There she found Madame De Gordette, her mother, the Zulima of our true story, and there, for the first time, she learned all the domestic romance of her own history. The anguish that had followed her mother, the remorse and solemn restitution that had marked the closing hours of her father’s life.

To a being ambitious and imaginative as Myra, this interview with her mother was calculated to make a painful and solemn impression. The one great idea of her life became a firm resolve; to that she was ready to sacrifice domestic peace and all those feminine aims which spring from highly cultivated tastes. Still womanly in all her acts, she took upon herself the research and duties of a man, not alone, but hand in hand with the husband whose happiness and aggrandizement would be secured by these exertions.

But the vast property of Daniel Clark had been scattered far and wide by the men who had taken it in trust. The personal property had melted away first, then tract after tract of land, block upon block of real estate had followed, till the claimants, most of them innocent purchasers, might be counted by hundreds. But the greater the obstacles that presented themselves, the more resolute became this young creature in the advocacy of her own just cause. All necessary evidence of the existence of a last will and of its destruction was secured; witnesses of Zulima’s marriage with Daniel Clark in Philadelphia still existed. The mother herself, though shrinking from the cruel publicity of her wrongs, gave such aid as her naturally shrinking nature, now rendered almost timid by suffering, would permit. Men of influence, struck by the sublime spectacle of a fair young creature, with scarcely the physical strength of a child, entering courageously on a battle where such fearful odds prevailed against her, came generously to her support. The great fight of her life openedhopefully; victory might be distant, but she would not doubt that it would come at last.

But in the midst of her first struggle she had forgotten to be prudent, indeed precaution was scarcely natural to that early period of her life. By adoption she had become a child of the North, but the warm genial glow of her blood still sympathized with the sunny climate to which she had moved, fearlessly, with her little children at the most dangerous season of the year.

But her husband was a northern man by birth, and he did not assimilate readily to the hot, moist climate of New Orleans. The excitement into which he was thrown doubtless added to the causes which oppressed him; in the midst of his struggles, in the full bloom and force of his manly youth, Whitney was stricken down among the first victims that the yellow fever seized upon that year.

They were living at an hotel in the heart of the city, with no home comforts around them, and surrounded by a crowd of enemies—such as spring from hotly-contested law-suits where many persons are interested in the defence. To all those persons who had in any way attained a claim on the property of Daniel Clark, his daughter was, of course, held as an aggressive enemy,—a woman who had come with her ambition and her doubtful claims to disturb the tranquillity of a great city. Many of these persons, having bought the property they possessed in good faith, really felt her action to be a great wrong—they had no means of knowing the facts of a case over which so many legal minds have struggled, and naturally sided with their own visible interests against the fair claimant. Thus the yellow fever that struck her husband down in a single hour, found Myra in the midst of enemies such as few women have ever encountered.

All day Myra had been lonely and sad, her children felt the heavy effects of the climate, and her own bright energies seemed yielding themselves to the enervating influences that surrounded them. Sometimes in the great struggle that she had commenced so bravely, Myra felt the painful reaction which springs from a long strain upon the energies. That day she had been thinking of her pretty home in the North, of its quietude, its cool thickets, and the great forest-trees thatovershadowed it. Near the house was a spring of water—one of those natural outgushes of crystal waves which children love to play near, and whose flow is remembered as the sweetest music in the world afterward. In the heat and closeness of her room, Myra’s thoughts had been constantly going back to this spring. The children also had prattled about it between themselves, and once had joined in a pretty petition to the languid mother that they might go back again and play out-of-doors.

Myra felt the tears come to her eyes as she answered them; there was no real cause for this depression, but it had fallen heavily upon her all day; she felt like snatching up her little ones and fleeing with them to the northward, where they might all breathe and laugh freely.

While the young wife was in this strange mood, the door opened and her husband came in. She glanced up in his face smiling a welcome, but his eyes were heavy, and a hot crimson burning on either cheek startled her.

She put the children aside, and seizing his hand gave another terrified look in his face. He tried to smile, but instantly lifted a hand to his forehead and groaned aloud.

“What is this, my husband—are you ill, or have you been walking in the hot sun?”

He withdrew his hot hand from her clasp, and sharply ordered the children back as they came laughing toward him. The little ones began to cry, but Myra would not be repulsed, she was no child to shrink away from a sharp word, though it was the first she had ever known him give her darlings.

“Ah! now I am sure you must be ill,” she said, hushing the children; “who ever saw you cross before, my Whitney, above all things, to them?”

“They must not come near me—send them away, and go yourself,” he said, huskily.

“What! I—I go away?” cried the young wife, with a groan of indignation breaking up through her terror; “what can you think of me, Whitney?”

“For their sake—for your own, Myra,” he said, pushing her away; “child—child, it is the fever that is upon me.”

She looked at him eagerly, almost wildly; her pale lips fell apart and her cheek grew cold as snow.

“Take the children away,” she said, motioning backward with her hand to a mulatto girl who stood looking on. “Take them quite away into your own room, Agnes, and be still.”

The little ones went reluctantly and with tears standing in their wild eyes. It was so strange for them to be sent away when papa came in—then he looked so odd and stood so unsteadily on the floor, besides mamma was beginning to cry—they would go back and ask her what it was all about.

But no, the firm little maid held them tight and forced them, struggling, through the door. She knew what those symptoms foreboded, and a sudden dread seized upon her. Yes, she would save the little ones—that was all she could hope for—and away she dragged them into her own little room which was distant from the infected chamber.

Myra forgot her children, forgot every thing in the frightful symptoms that burned on her husband’s face, and shot fire into the hands she clasped and wrung in her own.

“O husband! my husband, it is not that—not the fever, God help us! You have been in the heat—you are tired out; a glass of ice-water and a little rest will drive this headache away.”

“Oh, it is terrible, Myra, my temples seem splitting with the pain,” he murmured, holding his head between both hands and reeling to and fro.

“But it is the heat—it is the heat!” she persisted, determined to believe herself.

“It is death!—O Myra! I fear it is death!”

She began to tremble in all her limbs, a wild terror broke into her brown eyes, giving them an unearthly brightness.

“Oh, don’t—don’t! the bare idea kills me,” she pleaded, flinging her arms around him.

He struggled and tried to force her away, but the fire of disease and the power of her great love was stronger than his confused will. She drew him toward the bed and forced him down to the pillows, praying him to be quiet and to try and sleep.

While he lay moaning on the pillows, she ran for ice-water and gave it to his hot lips, bound his forehead with wet napkins, and strove, in her sweet feminine way, to assuage the pain which had seized so fiercely upon him. To have seenthat slight creature acting as a nurse to the being she most loved, you would hardly have believed it possible that she possessed sufficient energy to take a controlling lead in one of the most important law-cases that ever astonished our country—that she had breasted difficulties and outlived discouragements, before which strong men might have retreated, without a forfeiture of courage. In that sick-room she was gentle as childhood, but quick as lightning to seize upon any means of mitigating the pain that held that young man as in the embrace of a fiend.

Hour after hour she watched in that sick-chamber. The doctor came, ordered the usual remedies, and went away again, with a heart that felt little and a face that told nothing at all. His course of practice was unvaried—the same medicines in almost every case—copious bleeding—vague, wild hopes in the loving hearts that ached around the bed—then the last fatal symptom and death—thus it went day after day.

Poor Myra! how she searched that man’s leaden eyes for some little gleam of hope when he came into that sick-chamber! how eagerly she strove to read features that never changed to a thought or a feeling, even when death stood close by! Still she would not despair; had not every obstacle given way to the force of her own will so far in her life,—was she to be baffled and conquered now? To her warm heart it seemed impossible that death could strike a form so full of manly strength, or that she could live an hour after him if the great calamity did come.

Alas! with all her experience and force, Myra was yet to learn how difficult it is for a human heart to break of grief, or exhaust itself with trouble. If a wish to die could induce the dark destroyer to strike, many a breathing—nay, blooming form would be lying low, which is now doomed to run its course to the end.

One day, it was less than a week after the first attack, Myra was called to the bedside of her husband. A great and terrible change had come upon that splendid form; the flesh had seemed to melt away from his limbs like mist from the uplands; his eyes were hollow; the skin upon his forehead a yellowish brown.

“Myra, my poor wife.”

She bent down and kissed the fever-stained forehead.

“My husband! you are better; there, the brightness is coming back to your eyes.”

“No, Myra, no; I feel strangely but not better.”

A movement of impotent sorrow revealed the struggle with which the poor woman strove to disprove this truth to her heart.

“Don’t say that—you don’t understand; wait till the doctor comes, he will tell you that I am right.”

The sick man moved his hand feebly on the pillow, and a moan broke from his lips.

Just then the doctor came in from his rounds in the infested city. The young wife appealed to him, with her mournful eyes trembling with an awful dread as his fingers touched the pulse.

“O doctor! is he better?”

“Yes, undoubtedly.”

Myra burst into tears; the invalid brightened a little, then turned his face on the pillow, and great tears rolled down his cheeks.

“No, doctor,” he murmured, “no!”

“It is my opinion we have every thing to hope here, madam. Let us take a little more blood, and all will go on well.”

Bandages were brought; the sharp lancet bit its way a third time into those hot veins, and directly a servant bore out a great white toilet-bowl frothing over with the red life drawn from a frame already exhausted with its battle against the fever.

“There, madam,” said the doctor, laying the wounded arm of his patient tenderly on the counterpane. “He will do well now, have no fear; I will drop in this evening; follow the old directions and keep him quiet.”

“O doctor! I can not speak my thankfulness, my heart is so full.”

“There is no necessity of words,” said the doctor, complacently; “or for gratitude either, so far as I am concerned.”

Myra followed the man, whom she looked upon as something more than human, into the hall.

“Ah, doctor, are you sure that he is better—it was not doneto cheer him up?” she cried, while her poor lips began to quiver with the fear that crept over her.

“Nothing of the sort, dear lady. He is doing well enough; but take care of yourself.”

Myra smiled on him through her tears. “God bless you for this comfort,” she said, leaning over the baluster.

After he was gone, Myra ran into the room where her children were kept safe from contagion, and gathering them to her bosom, lavished rapturous caresses on their smiling faces.

“He is better—he is better, my darlings; he, your blessed, blessed papa. Kiss me a thousand times, and when I am gone go down on your knees so, with these angel faces lifted to heaven, and thank God—do you understand, children?—thank God, that papa is better and will live.”

The children obeyed her, and dropping on their knees, lifted their pretty faces heavenward, like the cherubs we see in Raphael’s pictures, looking the prayers they had no language to utter.

Then Myra, having subdued her great joy, went back to the sick-room again. How still and deathly he lay under the white cloud of sunshine that brooded over the bed! Myra held her breath, and listened for some sign of improvement. His eyes were closed, and his lips shrunk together and closed motionless in their golden pallor. How the heart of that fond woman cheated itself. His languid stillness was a good sign to her.

“Yes,” she whispered, sitting down by the bed, and softly clasping his feeble hand. “There is no pain now; he rests sweetly.”

He heard her and clasped her fingers with feeble recognition, but did not speak or attempt to utter a word. Still the great tears rolled down his face, and she knew he was conscious.

Thus two or three hours passed and then the fever grew rampant again, and fell upon that weak form like a vampyre, drinking up all the life that the lancet had left. Myra began to be frightened, and hoped impatiently for the doctor to come. There was something in the case that she could not understand; doubtless, it was all right, but the look of that haggard face was appalling.

At last the physician came slowly, and with that slowmethod which is so irksome to an impatient heart. He came to the bed, felt of the patient’s pulse, laid the hand gently down, and turned away muttering that she might go on as before, there were no fresh directions to give.

Now the patient opened his eyes, and fixed them with mournful reproach on the doctor’s face; he did not attempt to speak, but the great tears gathered slowly in his eyes, and the dark lashes closed again.

As usual Myra followed the doctor out of the room.

“Tell me,” she said; “he is no worse—he is getting well; there is no danger now.”

The doctor drew on his glove, smoothing it to the hand, while she was speaking.

“There is no hope, my dear madam; not a gleam. He must die before morning; did you not observe the black on his lips.”

“Die before morning—my husband. Oh, no! you want to see if I have all the courage people talk about; but you see, doctor, I am a poor little coward. One does not fight with death. Don’t you see how I tremble? Don’t, don’t carry this any further. I’m not very strong, and—and—oh, my God! my God! why don’t you speak to me?”

“Indeed, my poor lady, I have nothing more to say; it would give me great satisfaction to give you hope if I had any myself. But the last fatal symptom has come, no skill on earth can save him; it is but a question of time now—hardly that, in fact.”

The doctor was going down-stairs as he spoke, for he would gladly have avoided the anguish that came like a storm into that white face, but Myra sprang after him, seizing hold of his arm.

“O doctor! O doctor!” she cried, gasping for breath; “is this true?”

“Indeed, I regret to say it, but nothing could be more certain.”

Her hand dropped from his arm, her whole being grew cold till the icy chill penetrated to her heart. She watched him, as he glided down the stairs, with a strained and wild look. Then she turned and went into the chamber where her husband lay dying.

When Myra came forth again she was a widow. In one of those cemeteries hemmed in by moss-grown walls and filled with gloomy verdure, they laid the young husband down to his long rest. A pale little woman with two fair children wondering at their black crape dresses, stood by silent and filled with a dreary wonder that it took so little time to render a human life desolate. There was no noisy grief in that solemn inclosure; the little children held their breath in vague awe. The mother looked on as if those strange men were burying her heart which she could never rescue back from the grave.

Years went by—life made its inevitable claims, and the great battle of the law went on, which Myra fought out in behalf of the parents who were dead and the children of her husband. In the course of this struggle, a brave old man, one who had served his country well and stood at the head of its armies, laid his heart and his well-earned fame at Myra’s feet, and she became his wife. A few years and he, in the very city which had proved so fatal to her first love, lay down amid his ripe honors, and died, blessing her with his last word on earth. And now she still—indomitable still—untiring fights the great battle alone, and another year will prove that the life-struggle of Myra Clark Gaines has not been without its victory, and that energy, even in a delicate woman, can at last overtake justice.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESSilently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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